NO MONEY FOR LOWER CLASS SIZES IN CITY BUDGET

We knew that with the UFT not making a push for reducing class sizes that there was no chance that the City Council would insist on it so we were numbed when the City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced their budget deal recently that did not include money to reduce class sizes.

Here is a brief rundown from Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson at the NYC Public School Parents blog on what is and is not in the budget for education.

In terms of our public schools, it included $41M more to hire about 200 new social workers for schools, especially those with lots of homeless kids and $857,000 for seven additional Title IX Coordinators to handle complaints of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.  The budget will also put $250M into an overall city budget reserve to be used during economic downturns that now totals $6 billion. 

The education budget will  include  another $25 million  for the Mayor’s top education priority: 3K expansion into 14 new districts, bringing the cost to around $100M.  If the pattern of previous years holds, the DOE will continue to draw kids out of existing preK centers run by Community Based Organizations  and pushing them into already overcrowded public schools, which in turn will contribute to higher class sizes for kids in grades K-5.

What the education budget doesn't include: any increase in Fair student funding (with many schools are currently at only 90%), no dedicated funding for class size reduction, and no amount to achieve CBO pay parity for preK teachers -- though the Council says they got a commitment from the Mayor to address this disparity though negotiations by the end of the summer.

I am no budget expert but I cannot understand how if the city has close to $6 billion in reserves why many schools are funded with a 10% cut from full funding. Something is wrong that there isn't a peep of protest here.

The city seems to be expecting a recession while the Federal Reserve looks like it is about the cut interest rates to stimulate the national economy. Wall Street is loving it. Record highs for them. Continued austerity for the schools.  At least our TDA's have done well.